


Coming Home to Stay

by parisian_girl



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, MFMM Whumptober, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 01:10:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16253570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parisian_girl/pseuds/parisian_girl
Summary: It's a hard job being a trainee Cupid. Those bows and arrows? They have to be earned. But never has a Cupid had such a hard time as with Phryne and Jack....Part of the MFMM Whumptober challenge, for the prompt "Stay".





	Coming Home to Stay

**Author's Note:**

> Don't ask. There is no excuse.

_At the end of everything, you are going to die._

_Before that, though, you are going to fall in love._

_It’s just one of those facts of life, determined before you were even born. A bit like the colour of your hair or how tall you are. Everybody has a soulmate. It’s just that sometimes, they need a little helping hand to realise it. And that’s where we come in. That's what this story is about._

_Oh, wait. You didn’t think there was just one Cupid, did you?_

_No. Sorry to disappoint, but….can you imagine? All those people and just one Cupid? Far too much work. Labour laws apply up here too, you know. At the last count, there were six hundred fully qualified cupids with their own bows and arrows, and two hundred of us juniors. We don’t have bows and arrows; too dangerous to let us loose with those while we’re still learning. We have to earn them, and our final exam is always a test of bringing two soulmates together who otherwise look like they’re going to completely pass each other by._

_It’s not as easy as it sounds. To start with, obviously, there’s no bows and arrows. We have to prove that we can do it the old-fashioned way first. There’s no point just firing arrows in all directions; you have to understand what you’re doing. You have to understand people. You have to understand emotions. Most of all, you have to understand love. And there are so many methods to learn; the sweep-off-the-feet romance, the growing-closer-through-hardship, the about-to-lose-you wake-up call, the childhood-friends-reunited….the list is endless. My personal favourite is getting love to creep up on them without them even realising it, slipped in amongst daily chores, and work, and getting up and going to bed. Suddenly, they find that there is one person who they cannot do all of that without. Someone who feels right in a way that no one else does. Someone who can finish their sentences, but knows when not to. And that’s it. Their soulmate._

_Admittedly, it does go a bit wrong sometimes. Horror stories abound of soulmates being born on opposite sides of the planet, or of one dying before they’ve had a chance to meet the other (honestly, those Fates think they’re the only ones who have a job to do). Occasionally too, I’ll admit, an over-excited cupid misfires an arrow…but I won’t bore you with those stories now. The worst one, though - a cupid’s absolute worst nightmare - is when two soulmates are right there, next to each other, but completely refuse to acknowledge it._

_Since we’re absolutely forbidden from appearing on earth to bang their heads together, that situation poses a real problem. So imagine my dismay…no, more than that, complete and utter horror…when they gave me two of those for my final exam._

 

_******_

 

_It took me what felt like months to even get them to start contemplating the possibility that they could be more than colleagues. By that time, almost all of my co-trainees had qualified, leaving me as the only one without a bow and arrow, and I was getting desperate._

_I was starting to wonder what happened to cupids who failed their tests._

_“A marriage is still a marriage, Miss Fisher.”_

_No problem. Married to the wrong person…happens all the time. But granted, a good lesson for me in how the idea of duty can get in the way._

_“If you really want a Roman soldier, Miss Fisher, I can take it from here.”_

_Wimp. Although, to be fair, it was maybe coming a bit soon after the trauma of court. My fault. (Recap on lesson 12:“want to” versus “shouldn’t”)._

_After that, I pulled all the stops out. I tried everything I knew. The in-your-face method - quite literally._

_“That was close." "_ _It still is.”_

_The romantic-trip-to-the-seaside method.Sun, sea and sand work for most other cupids when they can’t be more imaginative, and it was worth a try. The body count wasn’t my fault._

_The seductive method._

“ _Perhaps another time, Miss Fisher. At a less dangerous hour. In a less lethal dress.”_

_Out of sheer desperation, the wake-up-call / thought-I’d-lost-you method. Backfired spectacularly._

_“So you’re giving me up instead? What we do best…us…together? You’d sacrifice that?”_

_Apparently so. I’d gone beyond worrying about failing my exam by this point. I thought that was inevitable, and I was thinking about applying to be a guardian angel instead. Wings are less hassle that bows and arrows, anyway, even if it would be a sort of demotion, and the perks are better. No, I wasn’t worrying about myself. But I did have a serious, growing concern that they might have got it wrong._

_It does occasionally happen, you know. People get matched with the wrong soulmate. They don’t like admitting it, those nameless figures up there who sort all these things out, but even they make mistakes. Of course they always blame us. When you think about it, though, it doesn’t just mess up two lives. It’s a whole domino effect. There’s the people who are mismatched, and the people they’re wrongly matched with….then the people they should have been matched with…and so it goes on. Once, many years ago, it got so out of hand that an International State of Emergency was declared._

_I didn’t want to go down in history as the first cupid in five hundred years to cause one of those._

_I still had reservations when things picked up a little and I got an extension on my exam time. Every time they took a step forward it seemed to be followed by two determined, stubborn steps back, and I began to feel like it was personal. Did they see me working my ass off, and do it deliberately? Or were they really so blind that they didn’t know?_

_It was only when I started to notice the looks between them, the touches that lingered a little too long, the seeming need for each other’s company at the end of a long day, that I started to realise (and to wish I’d paid more attention in the classroom). They did know it. Of course they did. They just couldn’t articulate it. Like two dancers, longing for a waltz but not knowing how to change the music from the Charleston. And it was that that gave me the idea._

_Every dancer, even the most energetic, needs a break at some point. And when they return from getting a drink, or visiting the bathroom, or chatting to friends, or whatever it is they do with themselves, they usually find that the band has moved on._

 

*****

 

Four months.

The dawn felt harsh this morning. Normally, he loved this time of the morning; the pastel shades of sunrise would soothe him into the new day, and he would soak the freshness in on his bike or in his garden before anyone else was up to share it. But today the sun was glaring, even at 6am. The sweat was already beginning to trickle down his chest as he drove the spade into the earth, the humidity already beginning to settle heavy on his skin. Even the birds were dull, their song muted with the heat that had sat over the city like a blanket for two weeks now.

And still no telegram.

He slammed the spade into the ground and leaned his forearms on the handle. His breath was coming hard, and he wiped his forehead with the back of a dirty hand. Of course, he wasn’t really surprised. This was Miss Fisher, after all. No doubt she had more important, more exciting things to worry about than sending him a telegram. Flying halfway around the world, especially with her father in tow, was no mean feat, and he was quite sure that it had taken every ounce of her considerable willpower not to loop-the-loop and throw him out over the sea. 

But still. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he had hoped for _something_. 

Dammit, he missed her.

She would be there by now, having landed in the middle of a London winter. He had tried to imagine it, drawing on the scraps and fragments he remembered from his few weeks there during the war, but all he could remember was grey. Grey buildings, grey people, grey smog everywhere. He couldn’t help a smile as he thought of the colourful, vibrant whirlwind that was Phryne descending into that.

Mrs Collins had had news, of course. So had Dr Macmillan, and they both always passed on what they had heard. They never asked him why he never had any news of his own, and for that he was grateful. So many hours had been spent thinking of her, indulging himself in fantasies of her and reliving every moment he could remember, wishing that he had had more time or that he had realised sooner. He wasn’t ready to admit just yet that apparently he mattered little to the woman who had come to mean the whole world to him. It was only at times like this, when he was all alone and her face and her voice had faded like smoke, that he really felt the empty hole in his gut where he had once held hope.

He had kissed her, and she had kissed him back.

She had asked him to come after her.

He had asked her to stay. 

Neither of them had said yes.

Work was proving to be a good distraction. The heatwave seemed to have dampened the enthusiasm of the hardcore criminal underworld, but petty crime was soaring and tempers were fraying. He had never known so many break-ins, burglaries, domestics, and bar brawls, and he threw himself into it with the resigned energy of someone who didn’t particularly want to stop and think. Collins had once gently suggested a few days off, but he had roundly ignored that idea and worked the weekend instead. It had never been mentioned again.

One day, he knew, he would have to stop and face it, especially if she decided not to return to Melbourne but to stay in London, or somewhere that had caught her fancy along the way. But he didn’t think that day had come yet. So he wiped his face once more and yanked the spade from the dry, hard ground, preparing to turn over one more little patch and water it before calling it a day and getting ready to head to the station, when he paused.

Inside his house, the telephone was ringing. 

 

******

 

_The forced-separation method._

_It’s not usually recommended, because of all the things that can go wrong. They could meet someone else, decide to stay away…those things are out of our control. But sometimes it’s the only way of making someone realise how much another person means to them and, in my defence, I had tried everything else. This was a last resort._

_Remember how I started this story? That at the end of everything, you are going to die?_

 

 

_******_

 

 

Phryne stood on deck, her hands gripping the railings. The wind was whipping her hair, carrying tiny droplets of salt that she could taste whenever she licked her lips, but she took no notice. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon. It was creeping closer, but far too slowly for her liking. Her fingers tapped a staccato beat against the metal of the railings. _One-two-three-one-two-three._ She was all packed, ready to disembark as soon as the ship docked. There was nothing left to do but wait.

She had thought so often about her homecoming. Almost as soon as she had left, she had missed the Australian sunshine and blue skies; her home and the little family she had gathered round her. She had planned it all in her head as she flew over France. A small party, nothing grand, at Wardlow, with the best of Mr Butler’s home cooking and free-flowing cocktails. It would still be warm, the tail end of summer, so perhaps drinks in the garden too. Dot and Hugh, Mac, Cec and Bert - who, despite their communist tendencies, had never been known to turn down a glass of good champagne. She had even thought about including her Aunt Prudence, so badly was she missing every element of the fabric of Melbourne that had held her life together. And always, always, there was Jack.

She hadn’t sent him a telegram, simply because she hadn’t known what to say. How could she squeeze into fifty words how his kiss had made her feel, how she missed him more and more the further away from him she flew, how she was too scared to admit that she loved him, that she didn’t know if she could give him what he deserved but that she wanted to try anyway? It was impossible.

Of course he hadn’t come after her, just as she hadn’t stayed, but she had thought of him so much. Missed him so much. Never once had she contemplated the idea that she would not return to Melbourne, or that he wouldn’t be there when she did.

Until now. 

She had stared at the telegram, handed to her by her parents’ butler one morning after a particularly late night out in Covent Garden, for what seemed like hours, in numb, horrified disbelief. It couldn’t be true. She had refused to believe it, but every time she looked at the scrap of paper, so flimsy in the weak December sunlight, there it was. 

_Jack._

Margaret had taken her daughter’s hand, and taken charge with a quiet, commanding authority that Phryne hadn’t known she possessed. Within a day, she had a ticket booked on the first ship leaving Southampton; when Phryne had fretted that it would be far too slow, her mother, knowing what she was thinking, had told her in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t even fit to drive, never mind fly. Her luggage was assembled for her, and she remembered seeing it stacked up in her room and wondering how on earth she had managed to accumulate so much in such a short space of time, when none of it mattered anyway. For three days, she had haunted the post office, pouncing on every telegram that arrived from Hugh or Mac or Dot, and slowly she had begun to piece together the basics of what had happened.

He had been called in from home. At the change of shifts on the docks, early in the morning, scuffling had descended into full-blown rioting and the police had needed every man they could get. Even Detective Inspectors who weren’t on duty and who weren’t supposed to be doing the dirty work in the first place.

He took a knife to the left side.

He had spent almost three hours in surgery.

He had been unconscious for a day after that.

He had survived.

 

*****

 

_I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved in my life._

_Oh…wait. You thought one of them had died? Sorry. Didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression. But it was a close thing. His guardian angel put in for a lot of overtime hours that week, and I spent a lot of time waiting. Watching. Putting in a good word to everyone I could think of, and then waiting some more. Just like Phryne did - apparently she actually prayed that day. First time ever. They weren’t sure who it was at first._

_That’s when I knew, though. Soulmates. And I’m ashamed to admit that I did think….well. I thought that, if he survived, I may just have pulled off the best coup in matchmaking history._

_Because it’s a sad fact that too many people - including those two stubborn, beautiful idiots down there (who I will admit to growing rather fond of in a frustrated, annoying kind of way) - can live for years with love staring them right in the face, and they don’t realise until it isn’t there anymore._

 

*******

 

She could make out buildings now. The dark smudge on the horizon had gradually turned into a definite strip of land, stretching the length of the horizon as far as her eyes could see; the birds wheeling overhead told her they were close. Gradually, the docks came into view, and she felt her stomach constrict. Where had it happened, she wondered? Near the gangway? By the gates? She shook her head. It didn’t matter.

Four weeks.

It was luck that the first ship leaving Southampton had also been the fastest, calling only at Aden, Bombay, and Colombo before docking at Melbourne, but still it had felt like purgatory. Telegrams had been waiting for her at every stop, and she had been able to roughly follow Jack’s progress, at least. She knew he was home, on convalescent leave. She knew Mac had almost killed him herself for being so stubborn, and grumpy, and the worst patient she had ever had the misfortune of having to treat. She knew, too, that Mac wouldn’t have had it any other way. Neither would Hugh, who had had to pick up most of the pieces at the station, or Dot, who had taken it upon herself to nurse Jack at home when he first left hospital. The last telegram, a single one from Mac waiting for her in the sweltering humidity of Colombo, stated simply that Jack was recovering nicely with the help of Dot’s cottage pies and Mr Butler’s chicken dinners. Phryne was the only one who hadn’t been there, and she hadn’t felt bitter regret like it since Janey.

It felt like hours before the ship actually docked; hours that seemed to drag on forever. She didn’t really know what to expect. She knew what she hoped…but then, she had learned that reality didn’t always match it. Everyone kew she was coming, though. Mac would be there to meet her, and Phryne knew that with a tiny bit of persuasion she would take her straight to Richmond.

But it wasn’t necessary. 

She saw him the moment she stepped onto the gangplank, and her world blurred at the edges. He was too far away. His hat was the same, his dark coat. She thought he was even wearing a suit, just like he always did, but she couldn’t see his face. She needed to see his face. She needed to touch his skin, and kiss his lips, and see for herself. 

She ran.

Her feet slowed to a halt as she neared him, her eyes searching. He was a bit thinner than she remembered, and paler. But he was smiling, and his blue eyes twinkled at her from under the brim of his hat.

She wondered suddenly if it was his eyes that she loved the most, or his lips.

“You haven’t lost your talent for running in heels then, Miss Fisher.”

For a few seconds, she just stared at him. It was all she could do before uncontrollable laughter bubbled up from her stomach, bringing with it all the fear that she hadn’t dared voice and the tears that she hadn’t let fall, and then he was kissing her. His lips demanded to know, and she told him, in every tear that slid between them and in every frantic touch of his cheeks, his arms, his hair under his hat. 

She loved him.

“You didn’t have to come home.”

She pulled back to look at him in disbelief and he ran his thumb under her eye, wiping away the last of the tears. He looked suddenly unsure, and she felt her stomach lurch. Normally, she would have made a joke, perhaps telling him not to flatter himself and that she had come back to lower the city’s body count, not for him. But she was way beyond that.

“Jack Robinson, don’t you dare….” She floundered for the words, and looked up at him almost helplessly. “You nearly died.”

“I think Dr Macmillan may have been exaggerating slightly.”

“No, Jack.”

She looked at his side and he acknowledged it with a tilt of his head, that half-smile that made her want to kiss the corner of his mouth, but he still looked worried. 

“Your parents…”

“Are fine. Jack…” She held one finger against his lips to silence him. “I almost lost you. I know it would have happened whether I’d been here or not, but….” She stopped, willing him to understand what she still couldn’t say out loud, and he nodded, slowly. He reached out a hand to cup her cheek and she leaned into it, closing her eyes and savouring the solid feel of his fingers, the warmth, the scent that was earth and spice and sandalwood and _Jack._ He was here. He was alive. 

She had no intention of letting him go again.

“So.” She opened her eyes and moved a little closer. “Are you going to let me stay and look after you?”

He raised one eyebrow. 

“I guess that depends, Miss Fisher, on what you had in mind. I’m well past the chicken broth in bed stage, and there’s just stitches. Not even a bandage for you to change.”

“Well, just humour me. At least for tonight…there must be _something_ I can do.”

His lips grazed hers, and she shivered.

“Just tonight?”

“Perhaps tomorrow too. My nursing skills are a little rusty.”

_As long as you’ll have me._

_As long as you want me._

 

_*****_

 

_I passed my exam, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know. They knocked marks off for the sheer length of time it took, and I got a warning for pushing the boundaries a bit with the whole flying-to-England thing, but I passed. Bow and arrow in bronze, and not a moment too soon. Can you believe the next pair they gave me were her parents? Special request, since I know the family, and they’ll be needing all the help they can get. Stubbornness seems to be in the genes there._

_I watch them, though. Even now, just to make sure, because sometimes I can’t even believe it myself. Cupids are often cynical. We see love, but we also see the flip side. We see what happens when love doesn’t last, and we see what happens when love isn’t there at all. This time, I got to see what happens when love is real, despite everything that’s placed in its way. What nearly happened haunts me, but what did happen gives me hope._

_Remember, everyone has a soulmate. Open your eyes, and you might just see them._

_Or I could just use the bow and arrow. I’m itching to try it out._

**Author's Note:**

> I had lots of sources of inspiration for this. It was originally going to be about three separate fics, but then one night at about 2am, it seemed like a good idea to squash them all together into one crazy story. Obviously ;). And here they are, in no particular order....  
> 1\. The MFMM Whumptober prompt "Stay".  
> 2\. Marcus Zusak's The Book Thief, which is narrated by Death (but I thought that might be a bit much even for Whumptober).  
> 3\. It's A Wonderful Life, and the totally inept (but also totally genius) guardian angel Clarence.  
> 4\. All the post-season 3 fics / speculation / imaginings / etc.


End file.
